With shrinking prospects at home and the threat of further yen weakness, Japanese companies are rushing to buy overseas and seem willing to pay top dollar, as shown by Japan Post’s $5 billion bid for Australia’s Toll Holdings. Over the long term, Japan’s demographics ...

Some comments made by Finance Minister Taro Aso last month on the benefits of a weaker yen are missing in an outline of his remarks posted on his ministry’s website. “Low yields, the weak yen and cheap oil are basically, for countries like Japan ...

The current account surplus was the smallest in 2014 since comparable data became available in 1985, with the trade deficit swelling thanks to a surge in gas imports and a weaker yen, government data showed on Monday. The current account surplus, one of the ...

The yen has never fallen for four straight years against the dollar, and Japan’s former top currency official sees better than 50 percent odds that its currency will halt the losing streak. While the weak-yen trend from 2012 is still intact, the gap between ...

The Japanese Consulate General in Shanghai said it issued a record 874,077 visas in 2014, a 2.4-fold jump from the preceding year. Behind the surge was the sharp increase in Chinese tourists to Japan spurred partly by the weaker yen, consular officials said. The ...

In a reversal, the government now expects the economy to shrink around 0.5 percent in real terms for fiscal 2014, downgrading its July forecast of 1.2 percent growth, sources said Friday. If Japan worsens as projected, its inflation-adjusted gross domestic product will shrink for ...

Japan’s biggest trading houses are calling 2015 a pivotal year for the world’s third-largest economy as cheap oil, easy money and a weaker yen promise to boost growth. Twenty-five years on from the bursting of the bubble economy, which brought decades of deflation, the ...

A weaker yen saw more foreigners hopping flights to Japan during the year-end and New Year holidays, the nation’s two main airlines have said. In the holiday period from Dec. 19 to Sunday, the carriers saw foreign passengers increase by 13 percent from a ...

If your New Year’s wish is for more yen weakness, get ready to celebrate. After sliding more than 36 percent since the end of 2011, the median estimate of economists and strategists surveyed by Bloomberg is for an additional drop of almost 4 percent ...

Major Japanese carmakers may have benefited from the yen’s sharp decline this year, but they were also hurt by the consumption tax hike and prospects for the domestic market appear dim, Fumihiko Ike, chief of the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association, said Monday. “2014 has ...